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Social Justice and Outreach

Volunteerism is deeply rooted in the history of our church. From the earliest days of the Unitarian Fellowship from which our church has grown and when the small membership was occupied with planting liberal religion in Baton Rouge, members found time to serve the community. That spirit of service continues, whether through our scheduled group service projects, or through individual volunteer activities by members in wide-ranging volunteer services. From time to time members ask about volunteer opportunities apart from our group service projects. One agency that appeals from time to time for individuals to fill occasional or short-term needs is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The needs are varied, from answering the telephone, stuffing envelopes, filling a variety of positions in the community pharmacy, or specific skills like carpentry or experienced technologists. If interested in filling such volunteer needs, email rcureau@cox.net for contact information. More information can be found at svdpbr.org.

The Annual Community Prayer Breakfast hosted by the Interfaith Federation of Greater Baton Rouge is Thursday, September 7 at 7am at Boudreaux's. The event brings together attendees representing faith communities, civic, and social service agencies. Our church is well represented each year by long-time and new attendees. Tickets are $20. Email rcureau@cox.net before Sunday, September 2 to reserve your ticket to join our Prayer Breakfast “delegation.”

Children are back in school, but the need for donations to the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank is ongoing. Please continue to bring your donations of canned, boxed, and packaged staple food items to the Food Cart, located in the Coffee Room.

~Becky Cureau, Director of Outreach

Social Justice

Our shared offering recipient for the month of August is Together Baton Rouge, a coalition of congregations and community-based organizations in the Greater Baton Rouge area with the capacity to address community problems large and small. The coalition has been deliberately designed to cross the lines of race, religion, neighborhood and political affiliation. It works on issues affecting families and communities and is a strictly non-partisan organization.

In the heat of this summer TBR has worked hard to build the grassroots support needed to monitor and impact the decisions of our Metro Council, our School Board and our Sheriff with regard to the Industrial Tax Exemption program (ITEP) for Baton Rouge manufacturers. That work has included meeting with Together Louisiana groups from all over the state to share what has worked here.

On the Flood Matters front TBR has sent out an app to help flooded homeowners work neighborhood by neighborhood to encourage all to send information to the Restore Louisiana survey.

If you have not donated to Mikel Albagdadi and Front Yard Bikes to provide bikes to students at Highland Elementary School, go to GOFUNDME.COM/HELPINGHIGHLAND or call Mikel at 225-302-1817 to donate an old bike for this project.

The next meeting of the Social Justice Team is not scheduled yet. Bobby Thompson is healing nicely following his surgery and hopes to be back with us by the end of September.